Time To Play 'Is This Anything'
by Copycat
Summary: [Chapter 6 now up] (LL) Luke and Lorelai both ponder their relationship. Picks up at the end of season three (yeah, that’s how slow I am…), before Luke goes on the Love Boat. [Hum theme]
1. Row, Row, Row Your Boat

TITLE: Time To Play 'Is This Anything?'   
AUTHOR: Copycat   
E-MAIL: copycatcliffhangerhotmail.com   
RATING: PG-13   
CLASSIFICATION: R (L/L)   
SPOILERS: Through season three   
SUMMARY: Luke and Lorelai both ponder their relationship. Picks up at the end of season three (yeah, that's how slow I am...), before Luke goes on the Love Boat. [Hum theme]   
DISCLAIMER: If they were mine, would I be writing fanfics?   
DISTRIBUTION: Please tell. Like Lorelai, I like to know where my baby goes at night.  
  
Thank you to Ash for looking through my mess. It is much appreciated.  
  
#####

Chapter 1: LUKE – Row, Row, Row Your Boat, Down The River Wild 

I've been watching your world from afar,  
I've been trying to be where you are,  
And I've been secretly falling apart,  
Unseen.  
- Aqualung  
  
#####

He had asked her. It had been a last ditch effort and it had left him absolutely none the wiser. She had smiled in a way he had never been able to read and told him he should go. She had told him going meant commitment, and then she had told him to go right ahead and—go, commit, whatever. He had laid it all on the line, asked her outright if there was anything that might stop him, and she had said no without even blinking. Just a smile. Always the smile.  
  
He had felt a little part of him die at her words, but he had managed to keep a straight face, or at least he thought he had, and in the end he felt he was better off.  
  
No, really.  
  
Now he knew. He knew without a doubt that it was him, and him alone, it was all in his head, she did not look at their relationship as potentially more, but as settled. Even if he didn't understand... her, he understood that that was it. If there was some hidden meaning in that smile then he'd missed it and this was the end. He took her words at face value because he didn't have a choice.  
  
And then he had the dream. That damn dream that sent him two steps back the way he came. It was so real, so much her in every way, that he could almost convince himself it had been her. Not really, but still. Her, projecting her true feelings into his dreams?  
  
Oh, crap.  
  
He was exactly as lost as he had been before he asked her. More even, because, just for a little bit, he had been able to tell himself that it was done. Over. Finally.  
  
And then the dream came and confused him and gave him hope. Hope was bad, because it would ultimately mean disappointment as it had done so many times before.  
  
But hope was good, too, because it made him get up every morning.  
  
It made him able to smile at Nicole and pretend that he didn't notice her subtle hints, because she was nice and she liked him, and that he wasn't really leading her on.  
  
The place inside him that believed that one day Lorelai would run into his open arms had asked her if she was gonna do that any time soon, had asked if he was doing wrong by Nicole by taking her, and Lorelai had said no.  
  
He was absolved because Lorelai had told him not to care what Nicole thought, because Lorelai and a pack of Oompa Loompas were the only ones who would be able to pry him away from the first good thing that had happened to him since he accepted the fact that Rachel would always keep leaving and her coming back didn't really mean anything.  
  
He felt tired and confused and he wanted to stop thinking about it. She had told him to go, and whatever that dream had told him didn't matter. It was just a figment of an imagination he did not always manage to suppress, but always managed to hide.  
  
He had not read enough Freud to instinctively know what the dream meant, but he had read enough to know that it was not something he should think too hard about, because he wouldn't like the answer.  
  
So he had called Nicole, and they had talked, and he had managed to stop thinking about the dream long enough to ask Nicole if she was looking forward to going away.  
  
She was, of course, and her enthusiasm made him look forward to going. Just as he knew it would.  
  
Nicole made him smile, and so what if he didn't spend sleepless nights thinking about her, or smelled strange women's hair because they used the same shampoo she did.  
  
That wasn't love, anyway, that was Stalker Guy, the Early Years.  
  
There were no butterflies with Nicole, and that was good. There had been butterflies with Rachel, and there had been butterflies with Lorelai, and like Pavlov's dog he had learned that butterflies were bad.  
  
Butterflies got your heart broken.  
  
Come to think of it, he hated butterflies.  
  
With a vengeance.  
  
Because they made him feel so good, and that made the feeling bad that came afterwards that much worse.  
  
Because, let's face it, the bad would always come, eventually.  
  
Rachel had taught him that, once. He had asked, stupidly, why she was leaving; why she wouldn't stay with him and have the happy ending. She had laughed and said to him, "If you're happy, Luke, it isn't the end. Would you want it to be?"  
  
But even if he knew she was right, part of him did. A small part, but still a part.  
  
That part wanted to be suspended in time at a moment when he was happy—to get stuck in that moment, he thought lamely—and hang there forever.  
  
But then he would grunt and wipe the counter a little harder, just to prove to the world that he didn't think silly thoughts like that.  
  
And he certainly didn't think them just because Lorelai smiled and batted her eyes at him to get a refill.  
  
With a sigh of resignation he got up and went to the storeroom, determined to work, or count stuff, anyway, until he had gone ten minutes without thinking about Lorelai or touchy-feely stuff. Or at least the combination of the two.  
  
#####

Coming up: LORELAI – Fifty Miles of Bad Road - Possibly More.


	2. Fifty Miles Of Bad Road Possibly More

Chapter 2: LORELAI – Fifty Miles of Bad Road - Possibly More.

#####  
  
The more you try to stay  
The more I let you go  
Done too many things a girl shouldn't know  
I swear I never knew  
I could hurt you so  
One too many things a girl shouldn't know  
- Holly Valance

#####  
  
He asked her if he should go. If there was anything stopping him. Like a wedding: "If there is anyone here who knows any reason why these people should not be joined in matrimony, speak now or forever hold your peace." Except not with the minister, or the guests, or the bride. But still...  
  
She hates it that he makes it up to her. He stands there, expectantly, waiting for her to swoon and beg him to stay—with her. Tell him that she loves him, that she always has, and let's live happily ever after.  
  
It doesn't work that way. She doesn't work that way.  
  
She knows Luke once had feelings for her. She couldn't possibly not know. Everyone, from Miss Patty to, oh, the horror, her mother, kept forcing her to look.  
  
Porterhouse steak, indeed, mom. Luke doesn't eat red meat.  
  
She knows she nearly gave in to it. It was so tempting, just letting go and letting things happen.  
  
Sookie saved her, even if she doesn't know it. She certainly didn't mean to. "Luke is a really nice man." Yeah, that's just the point. That's the problem.  
  
Because she knows that what Luke wants and what she can offer are two very different things.  
  
And she loves him too much to want to hurt him—but not enough to want to marry him.  
  
Some people say life ends when you have kids. And even if she would never wish that she didn't have Rory, never regret it, she kinda sees what they mean.  
  
It isn't Rory, it was having her. She feels like some eighteenth century woman, sometimes, ruined forever by her one indiscretion. No one will want to marry her now.  
  
And she's so in love with the Don Juan who ruined her that she doesn't even care.  
  
It always comes down to Christopher. Always. He did a bit of the stopping, too, actually, what with the showing up and all.  
  
He wanted to marry her. Do the right thing. She didn't want to ruin both their lives doing that. And she was fine on her own. Perfectly fine in her away-from-him-ness.  
  
But he came back, and he kept coming back, wearing down her defenses, weakening her resolve.  
  
And then he was gone, because he didn't want to make the same mistake twice. And he broke her heart, over and over again. Wasn't that a mistake?  
  
Max had wanted to marry her, though. And she thinks she wanted to marry him. At some point. But then she called Christopher, and then she ran away.  
  
Max was a nice man, but she didn't love him enough. Just like she would never love Luke enough. Like 'that.'  
  
She had put all her eggs in one basket when she was sixteen and Chris had refused to give it back.  
  
Even now that he is married and—has a family... it still sits there on his proverbial mantelpiece like some damn trophy.  
  
She has tried, sometimes, to imagine her world if she had not fallen in love with Christopher, but a world without Rory is unfathomable and she can't do it. Won't do it.  
  
And a world with Rory isn't bad at all, in fact it's pretty good, it just doesn't leave room for men like Luke with the capacity to love you unconditionally and never leave you.  
  
To keep men like that out she has created a fantasy. A fantasy of a man who is perfect and thinks she is perfect and brings her flowers and gifts and... has a horse and some armor and a seat at the Round Table. Because men like that don't come to Connecticut, and she doesn't have to make room for them.  
  
That's how she could stand in front of her mother and say, "it's Luke, mom," like that explained everything—and it did—and tell herself that it wasn't an insult—but it was.  
  
Luke is not a knight in shining armor kind of man, and he will never be that kind of man, and she has made it clear that she wants that kind of man.  
  
It is a preemptive strike against propositions, because she doesn't want to hurt him by turning him down.  
  
And then he went and asked her anyway, and there was nothing she could do.  
  
She has spent hours during a too-long flight and lonely nights in hotel rooms after Rory has gone to sleep, alternately wishing he will just propose to Nicole and get it over with and praying that he won't.  
  
If he does, it will be over and she won't have to deal with it, but there will also be Nicole. There. Always. A wedge in their friendship because she has taken it upon herself to dislike Lorelai on behalf of humanity.  
  
Like she needs to.  
  
But it is out of her hands. She can't decide who Luke can and cannot be in love with. And if he wants Nicole she will smile and look happy for him.  
  
She is good at that, anyway. Smiling and looking happy.  
  
She has perfected a whole language of smiles, just for Luke, that he doesn't get at all. Which just makes her smile even more.  
  
That she can stand there and think, "This smile means I think you look really sexy today, and if you get that I'll sleep with you," safe in the knowledge that he will never, ever know. At most he'll get a little flustered and give her an extra cup of coffee without doing the Chicken Little act.  
  
Which just makes it even more worthwhile.  
  
Not that him prophesizing her death isn't highly entertaining.  
  
But now, in Greece, where the sun shines incessantly and bartenders flirt even more incessantly, she realizes that she doesn't give a damn about the sun or the flirting and she will watch "Sweet Home Alabama" again before she lets that happen.  
  
So she orders another one of those colorful drinks with the umbrella and the sparkler and writes another postcard meant to make Sookie insanely jealous.  
  
Luke will be there now. On the Love Boat. With Nicole.  
  
She shrugs off the thought of candlelit dinners and Luke, clean-shaven and in a suit with a ring in his pocket, and makes a smiley-face on the postcard.  
  
#####  
  
Coming up: LUKE – In Every Lesson There's Something To Be Learned.


	3. In Every Lesson There’s Something To Be ...

Chapter 3: LUKE – In Every Lesson There's Something To Be Learned.  
  
To me, you're strange and you're beautiful,  
You'd be so perfect with me but you just can't see,  
You turn every head but you don't see me.  
- Aqualung  
  
#####  
  
Luke drops his bags inside the door and looks around, feeling very Dorothy- esque.  
  
But then there is a shirt that isn't his on a bed that isn't his. It has been there since he found it in the laundry before he left, and he hasn't gotten around to doing anything about it.  
  
He still feels strange about what happened. It isn't strange that Jess left, and it isn't strange that Luke asked him to, but it is strange that he is gone. As in, not there.  
  
Lorelai had told him he had done the right thing; that he hadn't been unfair.  
  
But Lorelai is also the one who hummed the theme to Love Boat and told him to go on a cruise with Nicole no matter what assumptions Nicole would make.  
  
So maybe Lorelai isn't really the best person to get advice from.  
  
He sighs and goes downstairs. Might as well get to work straight away. There is food to order and counters to be cleaned before he opens again tomorrow, after all.  
  
With an uncharacteristic outlet of emotion he slams the door to the diner. Hard.  
  
Screw Nicole.  
  
Screw Lorelai.  
  
In a non-literal way, of course.  
  
At least his world will be Lorelai-free for another couple of weeks before she and Rory get back from Europe.  
  
He tells himself that this is a good thing, and the weirdness of not seeing her will pass.  
  
It had done so before he went away, after all. Maybe because Nicole had been around so much and been so enthusiastic.  
  
He isn't unobservant enough to not notice the fact that Nicole seemed to think that a Lorelai free world was a very nice thing, indeed.  
  
It is only that for him a Lorelai-free world is just that. Lorelai-free. Void.  
  
And it had only ever been that, for a long time, when they had been fighting about Jess. When he had had his anger to convince him that her not coming to the diner was good.  
  
Now, there is nothing standing between him and wallowing in the no-Lorelai- ness of his world. But it is three weeks for him to find a way to tell her that another relationship has ended because he can't get her out of his head, even when he makes a conscious effort to. Without actually telling her that that is the reason. So, three weeks to come up with a reasonable lie that will not be exposed by Nicole coming to town to do lawyer stuff with Taylor—and himself by extension, should Taylor feel the need.  
  
It will be three weeks that feel like forever and no time at all.  
  
He breathes in deeply and sighs, steadying himself. He has dealt with worse things in the past; he will get through this.  
  
If only he can shut his damn mind off.  
  
As he goes through the routine task of preparing bread and produce orders Nicole's voice booms loudly in his head.  
  
"It's her, isn't it? Lorelai?"  
  
He is tempted to tell her, "Yes, it is. And I'm only here with you because she told me to go." But he doesn't because it's a long way to the shore and he's not sure he'll be able to swim that far.  
  
He doesn't protest, doesn't argue, because he knows it will be futile. Even if he were telling the truth she wouldn't have believed him. But he doesn't understand her anger.  
  
He has thought that if he doesn't mention Lorelai, pretends that she doesn't exist, they will be fine. They will have a good time and go home and everything will go back to normal.  
  
But then the captain says something that he knows Lorelai would think was funny and even if he doesn't say it out loud his mind begins to wander.  
  
And then he hears, suddenly, Nicole calling his name loudly, and before he knows it she has stomped off to their cabin.  
  
When she is gone he thinks that maybe he should have told her she was wrong. Maybe it would have made a difference, after all.  
  
He ticks off the last item on his list and starts cleaning. There is a fine layer of dust on the counter and he is reminded, momentarily, of his father's hardware store.  
  
He tries to hold on to the thought. A past so distant it seems sometimes that he has made it up. It is all in his head. The only reminder is an embarrassing picture still on display at the local high school and a whole box of similar pictures tucked away upstairs.  
  
If he were the type of man who might enjoy a stroll down Memory Lane he would have gone to get out the box and immersed himself in a world where Lorelai does not yet exist, because however painful that past might have been at times, it is still the past and old wounds heal, even if you don't try to make them.  
  
He thinks this must be the key—the answer to all the questions he has not known how to ask. In time he will stop being in love with her, just as he stopped being in love with Rachel. It would be nice, of course, if it didn't take quite as long this time around.  
  
But on the other hand, he can't even remember when he fell out of love with Rachel, just as he can't remember when he fell in love with Lorelai. With no guiding timeline on neither the falling in nor the falling out he is left to just let whatever happens happen.  
  
Feeling the clichés sneaking up on him from behind he leaves the storage room, telling himself the goose bumps are from the chill, not self-loathing at this absurd train of thought.

#####

Coming up: LORELAI - Thus, With A Hiss, I Die


	4. Thus, With A Hiss, I Die

Chapter 4: LORELAI – Thus, With A Hiss, I Die  
  
Won't stop and try to turn the clock back  
I won't beg - I'm no good at that  
Too late to start and act like a saint  
Can't be something that I ain't  
- Holly Valance  
  
#####  
  
After seven failed attempts at finding anything even remotely interesting to watch, Lorelai gives up and turns the TV off. Sitting for a few minutes in a silence that is somehow different from other silences because it has a certain finality to it, she changes her mind and turns it back on, just for the sake of background noise.  
  
Tomorrow she will call Rory and tell her not to bother to come home on weekends—Lorelai has adopted Dan Rather as a surrogate, and it is actually working out really well. You wouldn't think it to look at him, bit he really is very low maintenance.  
  
A little disturbed by the elaborate detail that has gone into the story by now (no, that tie really doesn't go with that shirt, Danny-Boy) she goes to the kitchen to make some coffee. It'll keep her from painting faces on volleyballs for a while, after all.  
  
A healthy dose of caffeine will flush out the weirdness and make her feel right at home.  
  
She pours brown powder into the machine, switches it on and waits for the delightful sound of coffee brewing.  
  
It beats a lecture from Dan Rather any day.  
  
The first few drops of Heaven drip into the pot before the machine makes a sound distinctly like kitchenware being sick all over your new Jimmy Choos, before it splutters to a deafening halt.  
  
She stares at the Thing in shock and wonders if a nervous breakdown might be appropriate now? After all, her daughter has just gone away to live somewhere else, leaving her all alone, and THERE IS NO COFFEE! Taking a calming breath for good measure, just in case panic is lurking somewhere back there, she picks up her purse and leaves the house, humming the theme to Cheers.  
  
She leaves it to the bell to announce her arrival to Luke and goes to sit at the counter, all the while pondering her tactics. How does one get a maximum of coffee-flow going with a minimum of lecture-flow?  
  
She knows instinctively that Luke will be particularly hip on the greens tonight. He has been grumpy since she and Rory got back from Europe and, with Rory gone, he will feel somehow responsible for her well-being.  
  
"You are getting tea. And that's all I'm serving you tonight," Luke interrupts her careful planning ahead of schedule.  
  
"But think how hype I will become if I don't get my fix. And then I'll stay here all night and force you to listen to me talk like—"she hesitates, just for an instant and shoots out her chest, "—Dolly Parton in that movie where she's on the radio and people honk at her. 'Get down off the cross honey, somebody needs the wood!'"  
  
He just looks at her, stone faced, even if he does seem to be blushing just a little, and she changes tactics. "But Luke," she pouts—because pouting always works eventually, "I really need to drown my sorrows tonight. Please?" There is no room for dignity in the struggle for good coffee.  
  
"Will you cry?"  
  
"Yes. Loudly."  
  
He pours the coffee and gets her a sprinkled muffin from under the counter.  
  
"Aww," she gushes, genuinely pleased but trying to joke it off. As off- balance as she is feeling tonight she is worried she might actually cry for real, and that would be a breach of contract.  
  
She sits quietly, drinking her coffee and eating her muffin, while Luke takes care of the other customers. She wonders what has happened while she was away to make him so moody. Well, moodi-er. She has tried asking about the cruise, of course, but he has been especially incommunicado on that subject, and she has been too busy with Yale stuff to really bug him about it. All she knows is he went and Nicole hasn't been seen since.  
  
"So how was the cruise?" She will try subtle some other time.  
  
"Wet."  
  
"You fell overboard? That's awful."  
  
Luke just sighs very heavily and she bites her tongue to keep the Love Boat references back. He didn't seem to like that too much the last time...  
  
"Did Nicole fall overboard?" Lorelai's eyes widen in shock. "Oh, my God! She didn't DROWN did she?" The thought only occurs to her when she is already halfway through her joke.  
  
"No, she didn't drown. Why would you even think that?"  
  
She shrugs, secretly relieved, but becoming annoyed with his attitude. "I dunno. She certainly does seem to have disappeared, doesn't she? Was she abducted by aliens? Will Mulder and Scully come by to question me?"  
  
"You'd like that, wouldn't you?"  
  
"Well, yes. Or maybe Mulder could come alone? That would be even better."  
  
Luke huffs and shakes his head.  
  
"Then again, Mulder probably wouldn't come, what with him having been abducted himself and not working for the FBI anymore... No, they'd probably send that Doggett guy instead." Her nose wrinkles up. "No if I can't have Mulder I don't want them to come at all. She wasn't really abducted, was she? You were just kidding, right?"  
  
"I NEVER said she was abducted, YOU did."  
  
She rolls her eyes at the irrelevance of his point and gives him a few seconds of quiet. Just to let him think she has forgotten what it was she was trying to get him to tell her.  
  
"Did she run off with the captain? All 'ooh' and 'ahh' over the uniform?"  
  
"She didn't run off with anybody, okay." He drops the cloth he has been using to wipe down the counter and looks around to see if anyone else is listening in on their conversation. "She's just gone, that's it. From here, not the surface of the planet," he adds when she begins to open her mouth.  
  
"I'm sorry," she says at last.  
  
"Yeah, well—"  
  
She senses there was a sentence attached to that 'well' but when he says nothing, so does she.  
  
Two mugs of coffee later she is the only guest left and she picks up her purse to pay. She has a feeling he would like to close up, what with the chairs already being on the tables and the swabbing thing just sitting there by the door to the storage room.  
  
"Well, I guess I'll head home," she tells him. She doesn't feel the need to add the 'alone.' It is, after all, implied that she will be alone forever now.  
  
"She'll be home to visit, y'know," he says as if he read her mind.  
  
"Yeah, but it just won't be the same. She'll have a life there, and I'll just be the mother she comes home to visit on Thanksgiving because she feels sorry for me."  
  
"It will not be like that," he assures her, doing nothing to conceal the fact that he thinks she's being silly.  
  
"I know... It's just... It's not the same. She won't be here all the time, and I will. Me here, her not."  
  
"But you have the whole town to keep you company. You'll never be lonely. There's Babette and Miss Patty. Even Kirk. He'd jump at the chance, I'm sure."  
  
"I guess. No, I know you're right, really I do, but I was sitting there tonight, fantasizing about Dan Rather, for crying out loud. A whole new level of weird. Even for me."  
  
"Dan Rather??"  
  
She waves a hand dismissively. "I adopted him because I was so lonely without Rory, and he really is a terrible dresser. Couldn't pick out a pair of socks himself, but we had great fun all the same."  
  
"You and Dan Rather?"  
  
"Yes. Come to think of, that's disturbing, isn't it?"  
  
"Very."  
  
Lorelai nods thoughtfully, playing with the handle of her long since empty coffee mug.  
  
"Well, maybe, if you want to, I could come over... Just to save you from further fantasies of Dan."  
  
"Actually I called him Danny-Boy," she explains before looking up at him. "Come over?"  
  
"Yeah, we'll sit there together, like two lonely losers. Watch a movie or something. Hell, if you want to, you can pretend I'm Rory."  
  
Lorelai grins at the mental image that appears. "Can we paint each other's toenails and try on dresses?"  
  
"In your dreams."  
  
"Ohh, dirty..."  
  
She can actually see Luke physically backpedaling. "Look, just forget it..."  
  
"No, no. I want you to come."  
  
"You do?"  
  
She smiles. "Yes. Thank you."  
  
#####  
  
Coming up: LUKE - You Can Bring In The Dancing Monkey Now, Steve 


	5. You Can Bring In The Dancing Monkey Now,...

AN: I've been having some trouble with this chapter what with the shippery goodness of the end of season four (which is what I'm watching these days) and I've really had to remind myself how different things were at the beginning of the season. This is all very pre-self-help book, after all. :-)

Chapter 5: LUKE – You Can Bring In The Dancing Monkey Now, Steve

I'll put a spell on you,  
You'll fall asleep 'cos I'll put a spell on you,  
And when I wake you,   
I'll be the first thing you see,  
And you'll realize that you love me, yeah...  
- Aqualung

#####

He looks at her, asleep next to him. Her hair has fallen in front of her face and she is clutching her pillow. She looks like a little girl, innocent and in need of his protection.

He smiles, trying not to feel bitter. She doesn't need protection, just someone to change the water bottle or fix the sink now and again.

He gets up and dresses himself.

Unable to resist the temptation, he gently pulls her hair back from her face and kisses her cheek.

She stirs in her sleep and cuddles the pillow closer.

With a final sigh of envy he leaves the room and goes downstairs.

He knows he has to get out of there before she wakes up. He doesn't want to be there to see the look in her eyes as realization dawns.

Fear. Disappointment.

Apology.

He doesn't want to listen to her explanations. Watch her walk out on him.

He knows what has happened and he knows why, and he doesn't need to carry around the emotional baggage she will unload on him.

He has enough of his own just now.

He feels like he has been walking past the candy store on his way to school every damn day, dreaming about the candy, and then one day, finally, he has saved up the pennies to buy a lollipop, and it is the best damn lollipop of his life, and the next day the shop closes.

He groans. "I don't even like lollipops," he tells the fridge as he steals a beer from its belly.

It has been listening to her for years, anyway, it should know what he means.

And if it doesn't it will at least be polite about it.

He gulps down the beer quickly, and leaves the empty bottle on the counter.

It is not a note on the pillow, maybe, but it is a message of some sort. Even if he doesn't know what she will make of it.

The walk through town is quiet and peaceful. Not even the birds are chirping, and he is left alone with his thoughts completely. At another time he would have enjoyed the silence—or at least the non-presence of Taylor's voice—but on this morning it does not become him.

He shouldn't be alone with his thoughts right now. Come to think of it, no one should be around his thoughts right now.

He kicks a stone lying in his path and it flies down the street. Why had he ever offered to come over?

He asked himself that same question about twenty times last night, but the frustration he felt then was very different from what he is feeling now.

After all, he had gotten what he had hoped for for so long—or, rather, what his hormones had been hoping for—and now it turns out, as it so often does in the movies, that it is not what he wanted at all.

It certainly isn't how he wanted it.

He doesn't want pity-sex. Not even great pity-sex. No matter who gets the pity and who gets the sex.

He wants... he feels silly even thinking it; just think how embarrassing it would have been to have to say it out loud... He wants... a girlfriend.

And he will rather just take the smiles over coffee and pretend he doesn't need more than that, than he will take the pity-sex and pretend that it is enough.

Sometimes he really, really hates being one of the good guys.

Imagine how easy it would all have been if he hadn't cared. It probably would have been easy, even now, if it weren't for the fact that he does in fact have feelings for her.

If she had been a casual acquaintance, someone he didn't know so well, it probably wouldn't be so awkward. It certainly wouldn't have been so hard to walk away. Or even to stay.

But this is Lorelai. With everything that entails; there is nothing casual or easy about this.

There is no escaping seeing her again; there is no pretending he will be willing to not see her again. Whatever the terms of their relationship.

The thought strikes him like lightning. Not seeing her again. He realizes, much later than he ought to have, that there is a very real chance that she will find the situation even more awkward than him, and that she will choose to avoid him. She has done so before for other, much less significant, reasons.

That she will stay away from the diner.

And in order to get her to come back, he will have to go see her, and they will have to talk about what happened, and he will have to look her in the eye and tell her it's all cool, and he's the king of cool, and of course he knows it didn't mean anything.

Obviously, he does know that, but there is something particularly humiliating about having to say it out loud.

So maybe he won't. Maybe he will leave it up to her. If she doesn't want to come to the diner she doesn't have to. It's not as if she pays often enough for her to be any real source of profit, anyway.

It's not as if he needs her...

He sighs deeply, feeling himself get riled up over... he doesn't really know what.

The truth is, he has no clue at all how Lorelai will act.

No one ever does.

What he does know is, last night was a mistake, an accident. It shouldn't have happened, and at least half of him is sorry it did. The other half will be beat into submission eventually.

#####

Coming up: LORELAI - Buy Me a House In Denialville


	6. Buy Me A House In Denialville

Chapter 6: LORELAI – Buy Me a House In Denialville

It's after 12  
Can't face the day  
Remind me just how hard it can be  
To forget  
I said things I didn't mean  
You saw things you shouldn't have seen

- Holly Valance

#####

Oh. My. God.

She throws off the covers as though they are trying to strangle her.

I slept with Luke. The thought hits her like a ton of bricks and she inhales sharply.

Slowly, slowly she turns around to look at the rest of her bed. Empty.

She climbs out of bed, adjusting her nightgown and her hair as she goes along.

"Luke?"

Flashes of a dream long ago have her touching her belly as she walks down the stairs. No. She laughs out loud at her own silliness. Of course not.

He is not in the living room and she moves on to the kitchen. "Luke?"

There is no answer, no sounds of Luke—or anyone—moving anywhere in the house.

He has gone.

She sits down by the kitchen table and sighs loudly. Feeling an odd sense of satisfaction at the action she repeats it.

I slept with Luke and now he has gone. Maybe he was sucked into a vortex overnight and I didn't notice.

The big bad vortex where all men who enter her bed will be doomed to spend eternity.

She giggles inappropriately at the thought of Christopher, Max, and Luke stuck anywhere together.

Probably in a room done all in pink velvet and fluffy pillows. Little lamps shaped like cherubs and a giant red heart, blinking incessantly. Spelling her name in Morse code.

She shudders.

I slept with Luke.

The reality of the situation slowly sinks in, and at the same time she feels all the oxygen in the room disappearing.

I slept with Luke.

Feeling faint she stands up to make some coffee, but remembers that the machine is broken. And that's why I slept with Luke.

Of course she realizes, even in her current befuddled caffeine deprived state, that this is not entirely true. That's not exactly why she did it.

But for now it is the best she can think of, so she leaves it at that.

She would rather he thinks she's a coffee-whore than anything else she has been able to come up with.

Why had he ever offered to come over?

It's not that she wasn't pleased and grateful and all that, but see what happened.

Luke had gone and taken the coffee with him.

Of course he wouldn't have gone very far. She knows that. He has his diner and no amount of neurosis from her would change that.

After all, he is the All-Dependable Luke.

Running a hand through her hair she looks around the kitchen, somehow expecting it to be different.

She's running on zero caffeine and she slept with Luke. The whole world will look different.

Psychedelic, baby.

She spots the empty beer bottle on the counter and is pretty sure it was not there last night.

Oh, no. No amount of alcohol went into her decision to sleep with Luke.

But that means someone must have left it there this morning. Seeing how Rory doesn't drink and isn't here, it would have to be Luke.

So Luke got up this morning, had a beer, and left without a word.

And what the hell does that mean?

She moves closer to see if he left a note as well.

Nope. Just the empty bottle.

So, does Luke having a beer in her kitchen on the morning after he slept with her mean that he is okay about what happened, or does it mean that she has reduced him to the sort of man who needs a drink before breakfast to get through the day?

That's hardly likely, though, which is comforting. She has only seen Luke drunk once and she doesn't imagine that drinking is something Luke does a lot. It's not very healthy, after all.

So does it mean that he's fine, then? That he understands.

If he wanted, or needed, to talk about it, wouldn't he have stayed?

Although, Luke wanting to discuss his feelings and – this – seems even less plausible than alcoholic Luke.

She decides to get a beer herself – perhaps it will offer her some sort of epiphany. Maybe that's what happened to Luke?

She gulps down a mouthful. God, beer is gross in the morning! Well, that's some sort of an epiphany, but not very useful.

Setting the bottle on the counter next to Luke's empty one, she looks at them for a moment, in case they make a move to solve her dilemma.

No such luck.

Luke has gone, and it must mean he doesn't want to talk about what has happened.

"You had sex with Luke," an annoying voice in her head tells her. "And you liked it," it taunts.

"Oh, shut up," she protests, a little disturbed. So what if she liked it? Clearly, she was extremely upset and unbalanced! He could have slipped her decaf without her noticing, for Pete's sake!

That would explain everything. She was on caffeine withdrawal.

Come to think of it, she still is. But where the good coffee is, Luke is…

And she still has no idea at all what to say to him. Maybe she should just say nothing? Act as if nothing happened and see what he does. It's not as if she feels any great need to sit down and talk about what color her feelings are.

So if he doesn't broach the subject she won't either.

Excellent.

She smiles in satisfaction at the solution and hurries upstairs, humming an ode to caffeine, while she goes through the contents of her closet.

She needs to look pretty for the coffee, after all.

#####

Coming up: LUKE: Lucy Left The Sky And The Diamonds Behind


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